GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF INSANITY
ize them. By clothing and improved
shelter man habituates himself to al
most any climate, and by sanitary
knowledge he makes places formerly
uninhabitable safe for human life. In
pursuit of wealth, of political independ
ence, of religious freedom, he will risk
exposures which would seem to be en
tirely unnecessary. By improved meth
ods of agriculture man often renders
districts formerly uninhabited, or at
best only sparsely settled, capable of
sustaining large populations. In early
times regions covered with forests are
thinly inhabited. Civilized man cuts
down the forests and turns the land into
arable fields. Lowlands, which in early
times were at the mercy of the sea or
uninhabitable on account of fevers, civ
ilized man, by canals and dikes, renders
fertile plains. So also by means of
fertilizers, by rotation of crops, by im
proved ploughing, by the use of ma
chinery, sometimes by irrigation, dry
and sterile plains are made productive.
Even from year to year changes in ag
riculture or in the prices of agricultural
crops may render it expedient to change
arable land into pasture, or pasture land
into arable, and either process, if con
tinued, must influence the population
supporting capacity of the country. An
example of this is seen in the changing
of arable land to pasture in Ireland and
the turning of little farms into game
preserves in Scotland.
'In the civilized state man often makes
use of a country without any reference
to its agricultural capacities. He seeks
the minerals under the soil either for
his own consumption or for export; he
turns clay into pottery ; he utilizes
water power for his factories; he seeks
barren coasts for fishing or gathering
sea weed ; he establishes trading posts
in the desert or in unhealthy localities
in other words, he seeks his gain with
out reference to climate or soil. In
modern times the improved means of
transportation have still further in-
creased man's command over nature.
He is no longer held to rivers and valleys
as natural highways, but can seek the
quickest and most direct route. Cheap
ness of transportation gives him com
mand over the resources of the world.
In this way he can carry on the work
of production in any place he likes,
without regard to its food-producing
capacity. The people of England im
port three-fourths of the bread they eat.
This has the effect of enabling man to con
centrate his efforts in places most favor
able to the production of the kind of
wealth which is demanded. It enables
him also to choose climates favorable to
his health, as the English seek the Med
iterranean, or consumptives of the East
seek the dry air of Colorado. Man's
intellectual and emotional desires lead
him to seek large cities, and this he is
enabled to do by the fact that he can
carry on his occupation independent of
the food supply. This is especially true
of occupations demanding intellectual
effort.
''It will be seen, therefore, from all
these considerations, that man is still
subject to the environment; but the de
velopment of his power over nature
has rendered the cord which binds him
down more elastic. He is still subject
to nature, but has at the same time, to a
certain extent at least, subjected her."
Thus far my lecture has dealt with
First. The untenability of any hy
pothesis founded solely upon climatic,
meteorologic, or topographic conditions
to explain the facts of the distribution
of insanity in the United States.
Second. The necessity of assuming
primarily a mental cause to explain
these facts and the nature of that cause,
viz., the mental stresses incident to the
progressive civilized state.
Now, as a Third line of argument I
will take up the discussion of certain
collateral evidence-that is, evidence
taken along other but related lines and
leading to the same conclusion.
373